Steve Diamond: My influence on Edinburgh? The players are fighting in training

Steve Diamond is back in the game and relishing every minute of it, motivated to add some bite into an Edinburgh side bursting with talent ahead of making the trip to Leicester Tigers on Friday evening.

Diamond's message since being appointed lead rugby consultant to work alongside Mike Blair being crystal clear. "I think the boys need to be harder on each other. There’s sometimes a lethargy. I think we’re a little bit too nice," Diamond explains.

The players took those observations to heart this week, given there was a fight in training. "Which is sometimes what we want. You don’t want it all the time, but coming into big games like this you’ve got to be ready for it mentally," Diamond adds.

"Physically you can’t do anything with [the players], 39 weeks [into the season] if they don’t know the plays now they’ll never know them. But matching Jasper Wiese and Julian Montoya will be interesting. We’ve got a hooker who is as good as [Montoya] and a back row who should be able to knock ten bells out of [Wiese]. And that’s what we’re looking for - within the laws of the game.”

Sadly for everyone the Springbok No 8 will start from the bench, but you get the emphasis. Just as Richard Cockerill went to Edinburgh several years and shook things up, Diamond has gone north with a similar purpose. Asked who was involved in the scrap he simply smiled and replied: "That cannot be told! I think I got the blame for it.” What he can see is that Edinburgh have a "backline to die for", bolstered by the return of Scotland wing Duhan van der Merwe, and a pack which can compete. “I don’t see where the lack of confidence comes from. That’s the bit that surprised me," he admits.

Hearing Diamond talk about rugby matters on the field is refreshing after he had to go through several press conferences during Worcester Warriors' recent demise, faced with questions he never really had the answers to as the club was killed off by its owners behind the scenes. The "diabolical situation the Premiership is in" is behind him, for now, bemoaning the league's current lack of relegation and the number of "dead-rubber games". He continues: "Nobody’s interested in seeing them. Relegation gives people like me something to get up in the morning for."

Moving on from Worcester has not been straightforward. Diamond, along with the club's former main sponsor Adam Hewitt, made a determined bid to buy the club, losing out to Atlas Worcester whose plans include renaming the club 'Sixways Rugby' and dropping down the leagues to merge with local side Stourbridge. Diamond is under a non-disclosure agreement, so can't say everything he wants to on the matter. But he says enough, while also acknowledging that any previous aspirations to rebuild Worcester are now dead.

"What Adam Hewitt and I brought to the party were the real morals of running a community professional club in a massive rugby area. The people who are currently buying it have proven that’s not their case. It’s a smash and grab on a property deal. We were going to do a property deal, but at the back end of that development would have been longevity and a legacy programme for history.

"There was a thought process that it was such a strong rugby area with a facility which is second to none and a loyal support base. The team’s s----, but that could have been developed. There was a good vision, a very good business plan, but it’s not to be, so we move on. Hence why I’m enjoying myself up here."

As he will on Friday, Diamond reckoning that he has triumphed on about three occasions away at Leicester in 30 years and eager to improve that record.

There are currently no aspirations to succeed Blair as head coach next season. "I want to give people confidence," Diamond says of his remit. A few doors might be missing from their hinges at Welford Road by the time Edinburgh run out. It is nice to see Diamond back.